Threes' "Upgrade" to Turbo Broadband
In the last few weeks the area I live in has received an “upgrade” to Threes' Turbo broadband service from it’s normal 3G service. This is suppose to be a good thing because it would offer more speed, but alas reality is not what Three would have you beleive.
Since the “upgrade” the connection has been unreliable to put it politely. The connection drops out at random intervals and this can be part of the way through downloading email, pulling up a web page, or anything. Now with a cellular connection dropouts will happen, but when the connection drops out more than five times when trying to download a 20 megabyte file you’re talking about something which becomes unusable.
If you try phoning Threes broadband support line you get put through to a call center who will only offer solutions which would affect you if you have problems connecting in the first place. They’ll then try to do a coverage check, but, because I live in a newly built house, they can’t find the post code (despite sending bills here for the past two months), they then say they can’t do anything without a coverage check, and the conversation ends.
So I now have an “upgraded” broadband service thats so unreliable that it’s barely usable, and Three now have a letter saying they have a month to fix it or I’ll end the contract and my direct debit due to them not providing the service as offered.
**Update : **After several complaints to Three I sent a letter to them via registered post saying that unless the service was fixed in 28 days I would withhold payment until the service was improved. A week after sending the letter the signal strength doubled and my problems went away.
(As a side note, if you want to tell if you’re experincing something similar, if you have the E220 modem Three sell you can see the type of connection you have by the colour of the light, if it’s blue your on 3G, if it’s cyan your on turbo, and if the light goes out then your connection had been lost).